


Burn, Baby, Burn

by Corycides



Series: Devil Went Down to Georgia [1]
Category: Revolution (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen, One-Shot, Supernatural/Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As far as General Monroe is concerned Danny Matheson is just leverage against his mother. Jeremy, or should that be Lucifer, has other plans for the boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Franklins had opened their toll a few years after the Blackout. Even now there were traders and settlers who needed to get from one place to another, and the Franklins expedited that. Of course, if it was a family on their own or an individual, the place they got to tended to be a nice, deep ravine.

Hell, Darren Franklin liked to say, the Blackout had been the making of his family.

The dark-haired, dusty girl on the road out of the Plains Nation didn’t seem impressed with their entrepreneurial spirit though. 

‘I paid the toll,’ she said, glaring at Darren. ‘You let me through. That’s how toll-roads work. It’s the very essence of them.’

He shrugged and scratched the thatch of salt-and-pepper hair sticking out of his shirt. The boys were circling round her, nudging each other and leering, and he checked the trees for his wife. He caught the glint off sunlight from the locket Darren had given her for her birthday. 

‘The boys get lonely up here in the winter,’ he shrugged. ‘And I figure it ain’t like you’d bring much repeat business our way.’

Bobby lunged in and grabbed her, squeezing his arms around in a bear-hug. He mashed his lips over hers in a grinding kiss that bent the woman’s head back and made his brothers jeer. 

Suddenly his legs gave way and he dropped to his knees, mouth wheezing and his hands clutched over the bloody gout of his belly. The woman turned, short, bright sword in her hand, and smiled with bloody lips.

‘C’mon, boys,’ she said, crooking a finger. ‘I was expecting a better ride than that.’

Pete and Kenny gawped at a moment, then their faces twisted with rage and they charged her. She side-stepped gracefully and swung her sword in a smooth arc that - impossibly – sheered straight through Kenny’s torso. His body slid apart and hit the ground with a fleshy thump, his eyes blinking dopily for a few seconds before it caught up with his brain that he was dead.

The woman spun on the ball of her foot and drove the hilt of her sword into Pete’s temple. His skull shattered like a china bowl, his face deforming as the bones inside lost their cohesion. He howled and she, almost casually, reversed the sword and opened his stomach from hipbone to hipbone, letting his insides slop out.

It all happened within seconds. Darren had only started to swing up his shotgun and his boys were dead. From her tree Em screamed, a raking sound like a hawk, and fired her bow. The arrow hummed through the air and hit the woman in the back, punching through her spine and poking out of her shirt just under her breasts.

She looked down, tutted and snapped the head off. Turning around, the fletching still wedged between her shoulder blades, she flipped the head in her fingers and winged it into the trees. She threw it like a kid skipping stones, but when it hit Em's head it didn't bounce. 

His wife’s body crashed down out of her tree, smashing through the branches on her way to the ground. Darren finally found his voice in a furious roar as he jerked the barrel of the shotgun up and pulled the trigger.

The woman flicked her finger at him and the gun wrenched itself up, wasting shot in the air. As it dropped down around him, pattering off the leaves like hail, she walked over to him. He braced himself for a sword in the gut, but she just patted his shoulder.

‘Sorry, I have places to be and people to suck up to,’ she said. ‘But keep up the good work.’ She paused and looked around at the bloody patch of dinged tarmac, taking in the still hot bodies. When she looked back at him her eyes were beetle-shell black. ‘Well, once you stock back up on boys, eh?’

She slapped him on the back again, sending him to his knees, and headed on down the road towards the republic. Alone with his dead, Darren howled his grief for an hour before starting the slow job of moving them to the ravine.

*****

By the time she finally got to Philadephia, Meg’s good humour had gone thin. 

It had taken her months to get here, and she’d worn out the soles of her last pair of Doc Martins. Oh, it had been scenic enough with all the robbing, reiving and raping along the way, but she loved those boots.

Who would have thought a totalian regime in a dystopia would be such a pain in the ass to live in?

She pulled a grubby, much-folded piece of paper out of her pocket and consulted the hand-drawn map. Left on Monroe Way and straight on to booze. She folded the letter back up, flicked the finger towards the militia guards and headed on to the meeting.

‘The Winchester Arms,’ she said, hooking the chair from under the table. ‘Witty.’

The Morningstar, the Lord of Hell, smirked over his cloudy glass of scotch at her. No-one was entirely clear on how he’d escaped his cage or why he had his old body again or, entirely, on what he wanted. Demons liked authority though, authority and a bit of abuse. He provided both so everyone, barring a few unfortunates, had fallen back into line.

‘A bit of whimsy on my part,’ he admitted. He waved a hand at the bottle and unused glass. ‘Help yourself.’

Drinking with the devil probably wasn’t the best idea in the world, even for one of his demons, but what the hell. Meg reached for the bottle, if she didn’t have bad ideas she wouldn’t have any ideas at all.

‘So?’ she asked. ‘How’s life in Pennsylvania treating you? Got all the cheese you can eat?’

‘I think that’s Wisconsin.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever.’

Blue eyes narrowed over heavy cheekbones. ‘You’re getting very mouthy for one of the damned, my love.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m so bored that a rousing game of ‘what’s that organ’ would be freaking relief,’ she said. ‘Do you know what it’s like in the Wasteland? It’s like Hell, with more whining.’

He looked skeptical. ‘More than demons.’

Meg snorted and put on a whiny voice. ‘I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I need to eat someone’s pineal gland or I’ll just die.’ She tossed back the whiskey. It did not taste good. ‘I’m even sick of torturing Crowley. I repeated myself last month.’

Lord Lucifer’s mouth twitched in a smile. ‘But everything remains under control.’

She considered lying. Maybe he’d depose her. She’d been good at rabble-rousing. It was Lucifer, though, and despite everything she was loyal. Idiot.

‘The vampires are the problem,’ she said. ‘They still have their First running around and causing issues. I had him locked him up for a few years, but he chewed his own arm off to get away. Which I thought was rude.’

‘Are the vampires your problem, or my problem?’ he asked. 

She twisted her mouth. ‘Mine. Two of them got out of the boundaries the other year, but I dried out our trusty Winchesters and they rounded ‘em up. Bits of ‘em.’

‘And how is Sam?’

‘Hates you.’

Lucifer smiled. ‘Aw, that’s sweet. These long-distance relationships, you think they’ll never work, but he was worth taking the chance.’

‘Yeah,’ Meg said. ‘I still remember the first time Castiel set me on fire.’

Lucifer laughed and reached for the bottle again. While he poured, Meg glanced around the bar.

‘So why does everyone look like they’re about to shit their sackcloth breeks?’ she asked.

Lucifer glanced around and everyone went back to their drinks. ‘Oh, I’m not in favour in the big house,’ he said. ‘They’re all waiting for me to stab them before Monroe gives the order to have me eviscerated.’

‘Does he do that?’ Meg pouted. ‘Oh, you get all the fun. I just get werewolves with mange.’

He shot her a dry look. ‘Behave yourself, Meg, if everything goes according to plan, we’ll be back in business soon enough.’

‘Good….But why?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I know why we want it,’ she held her hand up and wriggled grimy figures. ‘Whatever flip they switched stuck us here in these fleshsacks. And I miss Twitter. You were all about the dystopias though. Isn’t this what you wanted?’

‘This?’ he looked around again, curling his lip. ‘My dystopia was awesome. This is a stupid, sucky dystopia. Ohhh, electricity doesn’t work. I had a supernatural contagion that decimated the earth’s population and then decimated it again. It was awesome.’

She reached over and patted his hand. ‘Don’t worry, Boss. Once everything is back up and running, you can use your plague again.’

‘They’ve spoiled it now,’ he sniffed.

Meg finished her report – vampires: rebellious, werewolves: asslickers (literally and figuratively) and demons: bored. ‘Can’t we just pull a few crossroads deals?’ she asked, getting up. She held his jacket for him to slide his arms into. ‘Start a motorcycle gang…with horses? A horse gang.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I want everyone looking here, not worrying about you.’

They walked outside and paused, waiting for a cart to go rattling down the street. Flags flapped from the roof with Monroe's signature in sharp black and white. He had to spend a fortune on those. 

'Does he put an M on everything?' she asked.

'If he likes it, he's going to put an M on it,' Lucifer sing-songed, making her cackle. 'See? That's why I like you, do you know how hard to is to find someone around here who gets me?'

Meg stuck her hands in her pockets and squinted sidelong at him.

‘So do I get to meet him,’ she asked. ‘Your new antichrist?’

Lucifer smiled briefly. ‘Why not. If anyone asks, you’re a whore.’

Whatever, Meg shrugged her agreement. Then hesitated. ‘We’re not actually gonna…’ She made the international hand-sign for boink like bunnies. ‘I mean, huge honour and all? But this is the only body I have at the minute, and I gotta walk back.’

He ruffled her hair. ‘Don’t worry, Meg. You’ll be the last demon I kill.’

Aw. Meg brightened as she followed him through the city. It wasn’t like unspooling vampire guts wasn’t a reward in itself, but it was nice to feel appreciated sometimes. 

******

The new antichrist (last one having proved even more of a disappointment than most children) was sitting on the floor. She could feel the pulse of his demon heart from outside the door, tugging at her own blood. It was amazing what they could do with technology these days – those days – it really was.

Although the anti-christ himself looked a bit…foxed about the edges.

‘He’s not very rawr,’ she said, hooking her fingers. ‘Are you sure…?’

Lucifer back-handed her into the wall. ‘Of course I’m sure,’ he said as she picked herself up. He was good. These days she was pushed to teleport a mile, but not a single human even noticed that. ‘He’s just…fallow. Wait a few years.’

Meg shrugged. She supposed Sammy hadn’t looked that impressive at this age. Well, actually he had. He’d looked like a muscle-bound giant that could kick you through a wall.

‘This is his gauntlet, Meg,’ Lucifer said. He put a big, warm hand on the back of Meg’s neck. ‘That’s why I asked you to come. I’m going to pardon Crowley.’

Meg bristled in protest, but Lucifer dug his nails into her neck. ‘You can have him back later. For now I need you here, and that means someone has to rule the Wasteland.’

Well, she supposed that was almost as good a punishment as the time she’d filleted him alive and made him eat his own bones. Although what the Devil would want with her in Philadelphia…

‘He needs a friend,’ Lucifer said. ‘Someone to encourage him to take the – wrong – road. You’re good at that. For a demon you’re surprisingly personable. Now play along.’

He scruffed her like a cat and dragged her down the hall as she kicked and scratched and swore. 

‘I found this little cow trying to pick my pocket,’ he said, throwing her at the polished black boots of a pock-marked man that smelt of blood. ‘Teach her a lesson and throw her in the cells.’

********

Meg sucked at the cut on her arm, willing it not to heal. Strausser did have a way with knives, she had to admit. A bit coarse for her taste, all stab and no finesse, but there was raw talent there. Once this was all over, she’d have to give him some lessons. A bit of one-on-one time.

She stood on her tiptoes and peered through the bars at soon-to-be bloody handed ruler of the world. He was hunched into a corner, hiding behind a haystack of over-long blond hair.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Hey, you.’

When he didn’t acknowledge her, she bent down and picked up a pebble. She pinched it between her fingers and flicked it at him. It shot through the bars and caught him on the ear. He jerked, clapping his hand to his ear, and looked up.

She grinned, the scabs on her cheek cracking and dripping blood. Poor, sweet lad winced with all those liberal sympathies he'd learnt from his Dad. ‘What you in for.’


	2. Chapter 2

The Devil was having a tantrum, raging like a child in the ruins of his room. He yanked the map of the new order from the wall and smashed it over his knee, ripping their world to shreds. Done with it, he threw it to the ground and ignited it with a glare and a hard look.

In her corner Meg gave a little shiver of appreciation, toes curling in her new (substandard) boots. Like all of them, he was lessened by whatever kept the lights out, but he had been so much more than them to start with. 

Attractive though it was, she reminded herself as the room heated enough to char paper and singe her hair, if he burned the castle down they’d have to start from scratch. Not that she had a clue what the angels were up to, but it would probably involve her spending a lot more time herding ghouls into lake beds. 

‘So,’ she said, clearing her throat and clapping her hands together. ‘Plan B.’

He turned to glare at her, mouth twisted with rage and blood sizzling on his collar. 

‘What?’

‘Plan A always fails,’ she points out. ‘So you have back-up plans. That’s how I found you and Mikey in the first place.’

He beckoned her closer with a crook of his finger, back-handing he to the floor when she got within range. The impact cracked the wooden floorboards, and a few ribs. Lucifer reached down and grabbed her t-shirt, lifting her back to her feet.

‘Be respectful of my brother,’ he said.

‘Uh huh,’ Meg said, pushing her cheekbone back into place with her thumb. It slotted back in with a gritty scrape and stab of pain that made her eye water. Respect wasn’t really her thing. She was working for Lucifer – what else was there to do – but after last time she didn’t worship him. ‘Like I was saying, we just need a Plan B, that deals with the fact your pet antichrist has escaped his hothouse of evil. You know, if we still had iPhones that would be an awesome game.’

Lucifer stripped his jacket and shirt off, using the latter to scrub dried blood off his shoulder. The bullet hole had already sealed itself. The only sign of where it had been was a starburst of shiny white flesh.

‘Under Monroe’s guidance he would been a warlord before his powers kicked in,’ he complained. ‘Too powerful to overthrow even once the power came back on. Now? He’s running around with the innocent, repentant and pointless.’

Meg crossed her arms and grinned. ‘OH come on, Lucifer,’ she said. ‘You know better than anyone that all humans are basically bags of sin and smell. And what is they say about the road to Hell?’

‘It’s paved with rebellious intentions.’

Not exactly, but ‘close enough.’

Lucifer nodded, temper dying down enough to let that terrible, quick intellect rise up again. ‘Ever thought about getting a tattoo, Meg?’ he asked.

‘On me, or flayed from someone else?’ she asked.

He grabbed her shoulder and turned her around, yanking her t-shirt up to nape. A sharp nail carved the skin of her back with quick, vicious slices. Her blood burned like infection as it oozed. Meg blew her hair out of her face.

‘Nothing tawdry,’ she said. ‘Make it, you know, classy-like.’

*******

It was raining, a steady, icy downpour that turned the forest floor to a swamp of mulch and mud. Lying under a bush, a stick getting to first base with her boobs, Meg chewed on a stick of jerky. Goat, she thought.

One of the scouts dropped out of a tree, landing lightly beside their commander, She crouched down, scraping wet blonde hair out of her face, and pointed towards the road. 

‘There’s a group heading this way, armed,’ she said. ‘The militia is chasing them.’

Captain Dale frowned, one finger rubbing the crossed out brand on his forearm. He was too cautious for this, luckily the Rebels were a rabble. Meg loved a rabble. 

She propped herself up on her elbows. ‘We should help them,’ she said.

‘We don’t know them,’ the commander said. ‘It could be a trap.’

‘Or they could be in trouble,’ Meg said, sounding believable concerned if she did say so herself. ‘The enemy of our enemy is our friend, right?’

‘She’s right,’ someone else said. A low mutter of agreement spread through the group. ‘We’re here to kill militia, not skulk around.’

Dale hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. He gave orders with quick hand-signals, sending Meg to the right while the others blah blah blah blah whatever. Meg grabbed her gun – she’d rather knives, but when in Rome – and crouch-ran to the bend in the round. She sprinted across the road and threw herself down between some rocks, waiting for the chase to reach them.

*********

The Militia had picked up their trail a day ago, when they’d tried buying food from one of the tiny, close-mouthed settlements they passed. It was their luck that Private Richards was riding through at the same time.

Danny grimaced, the one guy guaranteed to recognize him. His leg spasmed under him and went numb, making him stumble.

‘Come on, Danny,’ Charlie said, ducking under his arm. ‘We have to keep moving.’

She grabbed his belt and hauled him along, just like always. Charlie was the practical one, the one who was good at everything, and he was the lame duck she had to take care off. He clenched his jaw and stumbled on, trying to keep up.

Uncle Miles kept giving him looks, like someone who bought a racehorse then found out it was a mule with cropped ears. Everything they’d gone through and all they got was Danny.

Rachel – Mom – dropped back to give him a brave, worried smile. ‘I can help, Charlie. If you need a break?’

‘No,’ Charlie snapped. ‘We’re fine.’

She tightened her grip on him and they kept lurching on, round the bend in the road. Onto a straight stretch that led nowhere.

‘Shit,’ Uncle Miles muttered. He scrubbed his hand through his hair and turned. ‘Keep going. I’ll slow them down.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Nora said, slapping the back of his head. ‘You’d last five minutes.’

Then it was too late. The first militia soldier came galloping around the corner, straight in the saddle as he aimed at them. His mouth twitched in a satisfied smile and he jerked backwards, toppling off his horse. He landed with a thud on the road and didn’t move.

‘What the-‘ Aaron said. 

The militia charged around the corner and into a killing field, bullets picking them off their horses one by one. Fallen bodies and screaming horses fouled the ground for the soldiers still mounted.

‘Rescue,’ Miles said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘For once life is not shitting on us.’

The hail of bullets and arrows was short lived, if vicious. Half the militia squad was still standing when it was over. The rebels charged out of the forest, swords and axes in hands. From behind the rock a dark haired girl vaulted, knives glittering in her fists. She yanked one of the militia from his horse, sliced his throat open and spun to throw the heavy blade with startling accuracy into the forehead of a green-clad officer.

A smug grin sliced across the girl’s cute, familiar face. ‘Meg?’ Danny blurted.

She glanced over at the sound of her name and grinned harder at the sight of him. ‘Danny! You aren’t dead,’ she yelled, dropping to grab the dead man’s gun and snapping around to shoot another officer.

Once the last member of the militia was done, kneeling in the bloody mud with his hands behind his head, she ran over and hugged him.

‘Danny,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a couple of months, but the burnt out settlement still smelt like char and barbeque ribs. Rachel crouched down to pick up some old rag of a scarf, clutching it in her fingers like the Shroud of Turin. 

‘This is my fault,’ she said. ‘I told them Perry would be here and when he wasn’t…’

She bit her knuckles, all wet-eyed and suffering like one of those saints who died with their legs crossed. Aaron shuffled forwards to console her, patting her back with a big, clumsy hand. Everyone else shifted in various stages of uncomfortable, from Miles barely concealed guilt to the Bobsey twins wary uncertainty.

And then there was Meg. She leant against a burn-scarred wall and crossed her arms. ‘Yeah, we know the gist. Look, did you guys not have an ‘in case of emergencies’ point or something?’

Pretty much everyone glared at, even Danny. She rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in surrender. ‘Fine, fine. Far be it from me to interrupt the pity-party,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a look around, call me when we get to the ashes in the hair? That’s always my favourite bit.’

She hitched her bow up on her shoulder and left them to it, taking a wander through the burned bones of the old farm. It whiffed of all the usual under the fire: watered down, every day versions of the seven deadly sins. The oldies were the goodies. For something that looked like a massacre, though, there was nothing particularly fresh. 

No rape, no pillage and only two measly little murders – that no-one involved had really enjoyed. Meg poked at the cracked, long bones of one corpse’s leg with the toe of her boot and wondered what would serve her purposes best? Give them a hand or let them run around poking at old wounds like Doubting Tom?

‘Meg?’ 

She turned and scowled at Danny. He’d not backed her up out there, he deserved a little friendship withdrawal. ‘What?’

He looked satisfactorily miserable. Good for him though, he had the balls to try and hide it. More than anyone else in his emotionally incontinent family had. 

‘We’re going to try and put a few miles between here and us before we break for the night,’ he said. 

‘I’ll catch up,’ she said.

He shifted awkwardly, chewing on the inside of his lip. ‘Meg, I-‘

Then Charlie called for him and all Meg got was an apologetic grimace before he left. That was one apron string she was going to have to cut eventually, but that could wait. Meg waited until they were out of ear shot, then she went looking for all the people the Militia hadn’t killed. 

She found them on the far side of the property, huddled up with their goats and sheep in an old barn on the far side of the property. An old man came out, shotgun hung over his arm.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

Meg held up her hands and did her best to look harmless. Usually, with this meatsack, it wasn’t hard, but the old man didn’t look fooled for a second. Behind him the rest of the extended family watched from warily.

‘It wasn’t the first time you’ve been shook down, I guess,’ she said, looking around. ‘I mean, this is a nice bit of food-growing real-estate and you actually know what you’re doing right? None of this farming for yuppies shite, growing pot in old SMART cars.’

‘We get by,’ the old man said.

‘So when you saw people coming, you all legged it right?’ she said. ‘Hide the guns and the pretty faces, leave a couple of guys to pay off the tithe and play the poor farmer. Except this lot of militia bully boys didn’t want a goat to keep them warm on the dark nights of the soul, they wanted to know something?’

The old man blinked rheumy eyes and sucked his gums. ‘And I suppose you want to know it too?’

She finger-gunned him. ‘Give the man a cigar.’

‘Why should we tell you, when we didn’t tell them?’

She mugged regret, ‘Well, once this building burns down…you’ll be shit out of luck, huh?’

‘I could just kill you,’ he said, hoisting the shotgun.

Meg waited, grinning cheerfully. She loved people’s faces when they put her down and she popped back up like the energizer demon. Something about her face, put him off though. Maybe he’d had a brush with one of her kind before? Not enough to open his eyes to the horror and glory just under the surface of what human’s agreed to see, but enough to give him an atavistic twitch.

‘Perry Quinn,’ he said. ‘They wanted to know where he’d gone. I heard ‘em asking.’

‘Do you know?’  
He pursed wrinkly old lips. And Lucifer seriously thought humans were God’s favourite creation? When they sank like poorly attended soufflés after a couple of years? Eldest child syndrome, much.

‘Got some idea,’ he said. ‘He was a good man, good with his hands, but he talked when he’d had a drink or two. And he’d usually had a drink or two. He was worried about people coming after him, he never said why. Talked about dispersal and some author he liked. Willie Collins or something?’

Meg snapped her fingers. ‘Annnnnnd?’

‘One night he got all het up after he met this bald man in the market. Just packed his bags and left, heading south. Said he had to get out of the Republic.’

Towards Georgia. Meg grinned at the old man. ‘Your lucky day, old-timer,’ she said. ‘I can use that.’

She left them alive. It soured her stomach, but Lucifer had been very clear abut what he considered ‘lying low’, and incidental massacres were on the ‘not’ list. The Mathesons had put more than a mile between them and the farm, if Meg were the sensitive sort she would have thought they were trying to tell her something. 

It was dark by the time she found them, huddled silently around the miserable excuse for a fire with awkwardness hanging in the air like a fart. Danny bolted to his feet when he saw her, looking so gratifying relieved to see her that she knocked a few days off his ‘should always side with Meg’ punishment.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Oh, here and there,’ Meg said airily, finding a log to sit on. She held her hands to the fire as if she warming them, even though earthy fire didn’t burn nearly hot enough to winkle the chill out of her bones. ‘So, I found out where your man Perry went, if you’re all done with the misery spa?’

Miles eyed her suspiciously. ‘You know where he’s gone.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Meg said, over-enunciating the words like he was deaf. ‘I know where he is. More or less.’

‘More or less we already have,’ Nora snapped. ‘We need exact.’

‘Good luck,’ Meg said, sitting back. Danny sat down next to her, bumping her knee with his. She studiously ignored him. ‘He went to Georgia.’

‘What?’

‘That’s not what he was meant to do.’

‘Why would he go there?’ Aaron asked. 

‘Pralines and mutually assured destruction,’ Meg said. The walk had given her plenty of time to put the pieces together. ‘He was a big fan of Wilkie Collins, you see?’

They didn’t. Even Aaron, who was supposed to be the smart one (although that beer and delightful lemon tang of self-loathing disagreed with that assessment) just looked confused. 

‘He’s an author,’ she said. ‘He came up with the idea of golden peace, that two sides won’t fight unless one knows it can kick the other’s butt. Otherwise, it’s a stalemate. So, once Quinn realized that Bass was after the power and not just power, he decamped. So if Bass gets power, Quinn can level the playing field.’


End file.
